“Be home by 6.” The text came on Sunday, a day earlier than expected. The weather hadn’t been bad, so the hunt must have been successful. Wildly so. Why else would they abandon the hills early?
Still, when Jeremiah said they had two deer, five goats and a PIG, I thought he must be pulling my leg. They’d only been out one night.  And they hadn’t been hunting for pigs.
Turns out they were in dead earnest, and I guess that’s why Jeremiah works so hard to get a permit from DOC to hunt the Molesworth Station near Hanmer Springs–it must be crawling with animals.  Or, as Jeremiah would say, it’s all hunter skill.  
Milo wanted to know why they hadn’t stopped on the way home and caught some fish….nothing like keeping the expectations high.
(To the uninitiated, those hanging bags contain meat, some still bone-in, but removed from the main part of the animal.)

Here’s the requisite “scene of slaughter” photo. The hills look so barren, it’s amazing that they support so many animals.  Apparently the goats it breeds aren’t too bright though.  “Hey, what’s wrong with Bill?” they must wonder, as their companions drop around them.

I guess “normal” is what a kid gets used to. Naomi is feeling the pig’s ear. Milo had been looking up its nose a moment before. Mark, Jeremiah’s hunting buddy, felt really awkward carrying the skinned carcass though the courtyard of his apartment complex….it wasn’t a “normal” sight for those kids.

This is what we get up to when Jeremiah’s out hunting–serious chocolate consumption at She Chocolate in Governor’s Bay.  “Are your kids allowed to play with chocolate?” the waitress asked.  “Uh, sure,” we naively replied.  She brought out 5 little folded packets of liquid chocolate and 5 sheets of bakers paper which caught the breeze delightfully, flinging chocolate onto noses and wrists.  “They can draw with the chocolate, and it’ll harden,” she said, demonstrating a neat daisy pattern.  Turns out it hardens excruciatingly slowly on a warm sunny day, and that it makes magnificent finger and face paint too.